“A large concourse of people, including a host of the fashionables in carriages, turned out on Monday to enjoy the sport and excitement of the Races on the Saratoga Course.”

Those words appeared in The Daily Saratogian on Aug. 4, 1863, the day after the first day of the first Saratoga meeting, the anniversary of which we celebrate tomorrow.
The first race comprised three heats, each a mile long, Lizzie W. prevailing in what the local writer described as “splendid exhibition of speed.”

In the second race, won by Symmetry, a horse named John B. Davidson finished second. He was owned by John Morrissey, the man responsible for that first meeting, and for setting the course of Saratoga Springs history.

Continue reading at The Saratogian…